Best battery charger?

[David Wolf]

You guys are killin' me, I was looking for a decent two bay charger for 15 bucks or so and now you've got me looking at OPUS and GYRFALCON 4 bay smarty pants chargers at $30-40. One thing I'm not gonna do is buy a charger that only puts out 500ma, when my Pico's can charge in the mod at 1A. (and don't anyone dare warn this electrical engineer I should never charge a battery in the mod as I have been doing just that with istick built in's and other 18650 mods for 3 years)
The reason I'm considering picking up one of the two i mentioned is they charge all battery types and I've got some NiMh and Nicads around as well, another Pico coming, and gonna order some LG HG2 3000 mah bats. I've done a lot of reviewing of tests of both these chargers and it looks like a choice between a noisy fan but runs cool and runs hot when charging 4 NiMh at an amp.

My charging safety method - put charger or mod where it won't burn the host down should it catch fire and don't charge overnight. Works so far, lol

Uptate: After further review, I am favoring the Lii-500, will do what I need, runs cooler than the GYRFALCON 4 but not as cool as the OPUS but no fan

 

[DaveP]

You guys are killin' me, I was looking for a decent two bay charger for 15 bucks or so and now you've got me looking at OPUS and GYRFALCON 4 bay smarty pants chargers at $30-40. One thing I'm not gonna do is buy a charger that only puts out 500ma, when my Pico's can charge in the mod at 1A. (and don't anyone dare warn this electrical engineer I should never charge a battery in the mod as I have been doing just that with istick built in's and other 18650 mods for 3 years)
The reason I'm considering picking up one of the two i mentioned is they charge all battery types and I've got some NiMh and Nicads around as well, another Pico coming, and gonna order some LG HG2 3000 mah bats. I've done a lot of reviewing of tests of both these chargers and it looks like a choice between a noisy fan but runs cool and runs hot when charging 4 NiMh at an amp.

My charging safety method - put charger or mod where it won't burn the host down should it catch fire and don't charge overnight. Works so far, lol

Uptate: After further review, I am favoring the Lii-500, will do what I need, runs cooler than the GYRFALCON 4 but not as cool as the OPUS but no fan

I get it. Chargers vary in price by a factor of two or three. You can buy $15 chargers, but a good, well designed smart charger is a good investment that will last for many years.

That said, most of us don't need an 8 bay charger. 4 bays is enough for the average vaper.

You can get about 900ma charge for USB devices from the right wall wart USB charger. The current limiting resistor in the device usually doesn't allow more current draw than that. It's just that even the manufacturers that make removable battery mini mods recommend removing the battery to charge it because of heat gain in a small unventilated space.

I charged iStick 20W and 40W for years with no problems. Then, I quit buying mods that don't use replaceable batteries. If the battery is removable I pop it in an external charger.

 

[oplholik]

I'm looking at the GYRFALCON All-44 4 at IMR, and I believe I will be ordering this today. Looks good to me.

 

[Baditude]

I was in need of replacing an older Nitecore i4. I wanted a good one, not saying the i4 didn't provide me with years of faithful service. I debated between the Opus and the Xtar VP4. Went with the VP4 for no particular reason.

 

[AlB53]

I have the VP4 Plus Dragon, very nice charger.

 

[BreSha6869]

Lightning Vapes is having a 40% off sale on all chargers. Some good options there for a 4 bay for around $25....

 

[Oomee]

I don't know about THE BEST available at any price, but my XTAR VC4 has been rock solid for over a year of heavy daily use. And around $30 for a 4 bay charger isn't bad.

The only negative IMO is the proprietary cable. Mine has been fine, but a replacement down the road could be hard to find and/or costly.

Appears to be just taking the 5Volt from the USB and connecting via barrel jack to the charger.
There's nothing complex or proprietary about that.

What is USB rated at these days for current anyhow?
That charger draws 2.1Amp.

 

[DaveP]

Appears to be just taking the 5Volt from the USB and connecting via barrel jack to the charger.
There's nothing complex or proprietary about that.

What is USB rated at these days for current anyhow?
That charger draws 2.1Amp.

When I bought my VC4 it didn't come with a wall wart charger. I ordered one from Amazon that was supposed to have two of its four ports rated at 2.1A. I could never get the VC4 to charge at 1A. Once I ordered the XTAR charger all was fine. There's apparently no UL real time testing of wall chargers.

It's pretty much controlled by the current limiting resistor and/or the charging interface in the device being charged. You can charge a smart watch on the same power supply that charges your phone or laptop as long as the USB connector plug fits the jack.

Technical explanation of how USB has evolved and how it handshakes with devices.
Android USB Charging Secrets - APC

 

[Oomee]

When I bought my VC4 it didn't come with a wall wart charger. I ordered one from Amazon that was supposed to have two of its four ports rated at 2.1A. I could never get the VC4 to charge at 1A. Once I ordered the XTAR charger all was fine. There's apparently no UL real time testing of wall chargers.

It's pretty much controlled by the current limiting resistor and/or the charging interface in the device being charged. You can charge a smart watch on the same power supply that charges your phone or laptop as long as the USB connector plug fits the jack.

Technical explanation of how USB has evolved and how it handshakes with devices.
Android USB Charging Secrets - APC

Does seem a bit of a poor show from Xtar, all in the name if price cutting.
No included PSU so have to use your own unknown wall-wart.
I don't recall "unknown wall-wart" being UL listed either.
Can still input any 5V 2.1 A supply to that jack.
I have an old Xtar that's still going strong, that just takes a 12VDC input, I have plenty of options for powering that.

So 900mA for USB3 is max then?

 

[DaveP]

Does seem a bit of a poor show from Xtar, all in the name if price cutting.
No included PSU so have to use your own unknown wall-wart.
I don't recall "unknown wall-wart" being UL listed either.
Can still input any 5V 2.1 A supply to that jack.
I have an old Xtar that's still going strong, that just takes a 12VDC input, I have plenty of options for powering that.

So 900mA for USB3 is max then?

I'm not sure what the max is, just that manufacturers set the value of the current limiting resistor to a value that ensures that it gets the design current from the charging device. It's all in the USB spec. The designer decides how many milliamps their device draws from a power supply. That way plugging it into a 5A USB supply doesn't let the smoke out of a device!

My Xtar VC4 wall wart is rated 5v @ 2.1A and it gets pretty warm charging at 1A.

 

[Oomee]

I'm not sure what the max is, just that manufacturers set the value of the current limiting resistor to a value that ensures that it gets the design current from the charging device. It's all in the USB spec. The designer decides how many milliamps their device draws from a power supply. That way plugging it into a 5A USB supply doesn't let the smoke out of a device!

My Xtar VC4 wall wart is rated 5v @ 2.1A and it gets pretty warm charging at 1A.

I was specifically referring to the spec of USB C WRT computers.

 

[DaveP]

I was specifically referring to the spec of USB C WRT computers.

That discussion is pretty much out of the scope of this topic.

USB C is a fairly new spec, but it isn't plug compatible with USB 2 and 3. 1A seems to be the max charge rate for USB 2. USB 2.0 spec says 5 unit loads of 100ma and USB 3.0 spec allows 6 unit loads of 150ma. So, the spec allows 500ma for USB 2.0 and 900ma for USB 3.0.

We all know that manufacturers modify that to suit their own needs. We see 900ma + current draws from USB 2.0 devices.

USB C isn't compatible with anything I've seen in ecig mods because the connector is different as well as the technology.

 

[Oomee]

That discussion is pretty much out of the scope of this topic.

USB C is a fairly new spec, but it isn't plug compatible with USB 2 and 3. 1A seems to be the max charge rate for USB 2. USB 2.0 spec says 5 unit loads of 100ma and USB 3.0 spec allows 6 unit loads of 150ma. So, the spec allows 500ma for USB 2.0 and 900ma for USB 3.0.

We all know that manufacturers modify that to suit their own needs. We see 900ma + current draws from USB 2.0 devices.

USB C isn't compatible with anything I've seen in ecig mods because the connector is different as well as the technology.

People will charge from what they will.
Not everyone reads and follows the instructions.

I think this is a mistake from Xtar, just sell a good wall wart with the charger instead.

On the bright side, it would be easy to make another lead for your charger.

 

[DaveP]

People will charge from what they will.
Not everyone reads and follows the instructions.

I think this is a mistake from Xtar, just sell a good wall wart with the charger instead.

On the bright side, it would be easy to make another lead for your charger.

Sure, they could have included wall adapter with the charger and should have. $8 added to the price (or less without the middle man markup) was the right thing to do. The USB type A cable came with it. The USB power supply wall wart didn't. I suppose there are lots of VC4 owners who are running theirs at 1A and wondering why it takes to long to charge more than one cell.

 

[rob33]

I've been using a Xtar VP1, 2 bay for 18650s since 2012 and a Xtar VC4, 4 bay for 18650s and 26650s since 2014. Both have done well, and hope someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe they are 21700 ready.

 

[Oomee]

I've been using a Xtar VP1, 2 bay for 18650s since...

Hey, that's my charger!

 

[Spey]

An anyone confirm if Opus BT-C3100 can accept 20700/21700 sized batteries?

 

[oplholik]

Received my GRYFalcon A44 today, and I want verify something before I set it to charge a battery. If I understand correctly, for our batteries you set it to 4.2 volts, and not the 3.7v, correct?

 

[Mooch]

Received my GRYFalcon A44 today, and I want verify something before I set it to charge a battery. If I understand correctly, for our batteries you set it to 4.2 volts, and not the 3.7v, correct?

Correct.

 

[oplholik]

I've been charging some batteries on my GRYfalcon All-44 that I received yesterday, and I'm really liking this charger. I have been using it in the auto mode, and adjusting the charging amps to .5 where I usually charge my 18500, and 18650 batteries. For $30, I don't see how you can go wrong.